“It’s absolutely unacceptable what is happening with the
journalists, because the LifeNews journalists are now being
accused of all mortal sins, including that they were selling
weapons, which is nonsense, utter nonsense,” Vladimir Putin
told the media in Shanghai, where he was for a two-day visit.

“There are also foreign citizens who work for Russian mass
media being detained. This is unacceptable,” Putin said,
adding that from the beginning this situation will call into
question the legitimacy of “all these political
procedures.”

“In any case, political process, including going on
legitimization of the existing authorities, is of course a
positive step. At the same time, it will be difficult for us to
build relations with people who come to power amid the ongoing
punitive [military] operation in the south-east of Ukraine and
hinder the work of press,” he said, adding that they not
only “hinder, but behave more and more aggressively.”

“From the point of view of objectivity of the results, this
will raise questions and I really hope that our partners in
Europe and the US will hear and understand, eventually, that is
going on,” Putin added.

The two journalists, Oleg Sidyakin and Marat Saichenko, working
for Russia’s LifeNews TV channel, were detained by Kiev loyalist
troops on Sunday, presumably near Kramatorsk in the Donetsk
Region.

While the correspondents’ whereabouts are currently unknown, they
are “alive, healthy and safe”, a member of Russia’s
presidential Human Rights Council negotiating with Kiev
authorities, Maksim Shevchenko, RIA Novosti reports.

Kiev accuses the two reporters of aiding “terrorists,”
claiming that portable anti-aircraft missiles were found in the
trunk of their car.

LifeNews dismissed the accusations as “unfounded
speculations” and assumed that the detention of its staff
came in revenge on their people for releasing footage showing
Ukrainian troops using a UN-badged strike helicopter in the
Donetsk Region.

On Wednesday, a video message from Saichenko emerged on
YouTube. In this clip, Saichenko confesses that he and his
colleague concealed the fact that they were journalists while at
the border control in Borispol Airport outside Kiev, because they
were afraid of being “expelled from the country.”

“We said we were going to attend a concert,” Saichenko says
in the video. “At the same time, we left our journalist
credentials in Moscow to hide this [profession],” he
continues.

“From Kiev we came to Donetsk. We got credentials and a
journalism license from the Donetsk People’s Republic
representative to cover the referendum,” Saichenko says.

While working in the region, Sidyakin and Saichenko “were in
contact with self-defense forces and citizens” and “didn’t have
any contacts with Ukrainian army and authorities.”

“We were detained by Ukrainian army officers on May 18,"
Saichenko says in the video.

However, LifeNews General Director Ashot Gabrelyanov, commenting
on the video, would not rule out that it had been recorded under
pressure. Gabrelyanov, who also reposted the video, compared SBU
to terrorists saying they were “acting like Al-Qaeda.”

"It is not clear who posted this video, but I think it was
SBU (Security Service of Ukraine)," he said, according to
ITAR-TASS. "Lawyers and even international observers were not
allowed to the journalists. They may have been drugged." He
also stressed that the correspondents had all the necessary
documents for border crossing.

LifeNews has sent a letter to the US State Department, which
parroting Kiev’s position, questioned whether the detainees are
journalists at all.

“The Ukrainian Security Services, according to reports, have
detained a number of people who were in possession of fake
journalist credentials issued by the non-existent Donetsk
People’s Republic,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki said at a daily press briefing.

LifeNews offered to provide the State Department with any
information on the detainees' journalistic record that it might
want.

"The management of the LifeNews television channel has
reacted to a statement by Jennifer Psaki, a spokesperson for the
US State Department, in which she expressed doubt that Oleg
Sidyakin and Marat Saichenko are reporters. In a statement issued
in response, [the LifeNews managers] drew the attention of the
American diplomatic service to factual evidence of the abduction
of the LifeNews reporters and use of violence against them,"
LifeNews said in a press release.

It urged the State Department to "weigh all the facts and
make a decision on the basis of that sacred principle that is
defended in American society so zealously the principle of
freedom of expression."

The statement also stressed that no evidence had yet been offered
to back the Ukrainian Security Service's allegations that the
purpose of the visit by Sidyakin and Saichenko to Ukraine was to
"aid terrorists."

Russia has accused the US of turning a blind eye to the crimes
committed against journalists opposing the Kiev regime and
justifying the arrests of foreign journalists in Ukraine, the
Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the British Foreign office has confirmed that its
citizen, RT-contributing journalist Graham Phillips, has been
detained in Ukraine.

Phillips was detained at a checkpoint in Mariupol, eastern
Ukraine, on Tuesday and was taken to Kiev overnight by the
Ukrainian National Guard.